Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a control method.
Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus forms an image on a sheet by using a recording material such as toner. Generally, the recording material is contained in a container such as a cartridge. A certain type of image forming apparatus detects the amount of the recording material remaining in the container, and displays its value on a display unit such as a user interface (UI).
Conventionally, the image forming apparatus includes a sensor and displays a value detected by the sensor directly on the display unit as the remaining amount of the recording material. In many cases, in view of the costs or the like, the image forming apparatus employs a sensor unable to exhibit a high detection accuracy until the remaining amount is reduced to a certain level. In such a case, the sensor discretely detects the remaining amount of the recording material, for example, as 100%, 20%, and 0%. As a result, the display unit similarly displays the remaining amount of the recording material discretely, for example, as 100%, 20%, and 0%.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-343621 discusses a technique for continuously displaying the remaining amount of the recording material on the display unit while employing a sensor configured to discretely detect the remaining amount. For example, when image formation is performed, the predicted value of the remaining toner amount is calculated based on the dot count value of raster data, and the predicted value is displayed as the current value of the remaining toner amount. Then, after the sensor value of the remaining toner amount has been acquired from the sensor, the current value is updated based on the sensor value.
However, an error occurs in the predicted value of the remaining toner amount due to various factors (e.g., dot density). Thus, the current value may gradually deviate from the actual remaining toner amount.